the pope as assassin

The city of Paris renamed the plaza outside of Notre Dame Cathedral after Pope John Paul II and the AZT-for-Lunch Bunch is livid.

Among the groups whose members turned up on Sunday to protest the French capital's official honoring of the late pope: Act Up - Paris, the Pink Panthers, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and the Secularism-Ecology Association. Some handed out flyers denouncing the proceedings. Sharply criticizing the mayor, some called out: "Delanoë is honoring an assassin!" A statement issued by the gay-and-lesbian activist group the Pink Panthers linked the "words and actions" of John-Paul II with "a far-right fringe of the Catholic Church that is overtly reactionary, sexist, homophobic [and] anti-Semitic."

In what way was Pope John Paul an assassin? Follow me closely here: Believing that human beings are endowed with free will, the Pope insisted that they are able to choose not to sin. Confronted with the fact that one particular sin exposes the sinner to, and transmits, a lethal illness, he repeated the teaching of the Church that the answer was, not to choose to sin safely, to but choose not to sin at all. Yet many people made the choice contrary to the one the Pope counseled, and died. Ergo, he murdered them.

Clear?

The view of the human person Mark Steyn calls the "dogs in heat" model has, in many quarters (including some episcopal quarters), eclipsed the Catholic view. The result is an odd reconfiguration of the notion of responsibility. After all, getting AIDS is not like coming down with the flu; it takes exceptional effort to act so as to expose oneself to infection, and, conversely, avoiding AIDS is simplicity itself. Not getting boffed by a diseased ranger is as easy as not winning the Cy Young award. Almost anybody can do it.

True, there are those rare few who have the kind of slider that puts them at risk of the latter accomplishment or who inhabit the kind of cellblock that the puts them at risk of the former, but the rest of mankind finds the requisite "failure to act" eminently doable. You need a lot of adverb-bending to make an assassin out of a condom-discountenancer.

Yet even within their own reconstituted moral universe the Pope's critics are disappointingly inconsistent. Perhaps I missed it, but I don't remember their naming Bill Clinton a murderer for failing to issue wife-beaters with rubber crowbars. That makes one wonder whether their anger proceeds from moral indignation after all. It's a point I've made before: other institutions are held responsible for hardships resulting from obedience to their teachings; the Church is held responsible for hardships resulting from defiance of hers.

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The anger with which they argue against the moral stand of the church tells more about the guilt they must be experiencing for their own sin rather than the moralistic understanding they claim to have regarding their own sexuallity.
This is the mantra of today's culture:
If I will not turn from sin, I will make the entire world turn to accept that sin as a virtue. (and god help you if you get in my way).

Posted by: -
Sep. 05, 2006 7:44 PM ET USA

John Paul II was NOT anti-Semitic.

Posted by: Patricia -
Sep. 05, 2006 6:43 PM ET USA

It is the obligation of all Catholics to hold to the view that sin is not its own reward. It can cause great suffering and even death, so at least try, and stop lieing to one another that our joys are found in sin.
Delighted to learn that the plaza in front of the great Cathedral of Notre Dame has been named for Pope John Paul II. France has remembered that she truely is the first daughter of the Church and gives honor to herself, the pope and the Church.

Posted by: Hammer of Heretics -
Sep. 05, 2006 5:52 PM ET USA

I doubt that even homosexuals believe that the Pope blessing condom usage would stop AIDS. It's just a convenient sleight-of-hand to get those whose minds are darkened by sin to not listen to the Pope's moral authority. As they say, misery loves company...

Posted by: Fr. William -
Sep. 05, 2006 1:48 PM ET USA

Thanks, Diogenes. You cast the bright light of Truth in the midst of the darkness, helping us to walk in the Light of Christ (John 3:16-21) -- as opposed to a darkness in which gays want to blame someone for the fact that they continue to get all types of horrible diseases and keep dying as they continue to sodomize each other.
We can pray that all homosexuals will choose celibacy, to be chaste according to their state in life as single persons.

Posted by: Ignacio177 -
Sep. 05, 2006 12:38 PM ET USA

The homosexualist excuse making movement (distinct from the poor SOB that suffers temptation but does not justify vice) is one of the great evils of our age. It is an epidemic that has infected all parts of society. Not only do they justify their own vice but they work to dispel all moral clarity from public discourse.